2024 THE LONGEST DAY AR
Race report by Glen Lewis
Kate was a last-minute substitute for Amanda, but we kept our same race plan and were focused on being really efficient and moving well during the race. The pre-race schematic showed only 5 legs, which we felt would be achievable during the 24 hours. I was hoping to be able to keep us found and on the maps so that we could execute that plan. We stayed in Evan's van the night prior and had an early start to drop our bikes where we got our maps. I got an ok amount of sleep but actually felt father rested. I was a bit scattered in the pre-race and was very frustrated with myself the night prior and morning of. There was fortunately plenty of time to go through maps and we felt very good about our race plan. The two trekking stages were actually one big stage that we had the option of splitting into two. Our planning showed us that the best choice would be to just do it all at once to save time, elevation, and distance. We would have to dig deep for what we estimated would be 30km+ of steep trekking, but it was the obvious right decision for us. We did plan on some contingencies of dropping certain points for later but never had to use them.
We had to drop our cars at a different location (the bike drop and map-prep area were the same as the prologue and ended up being TAs 2 and 3, so we got very familiar with it) before getting on busses to go to the rafting company to get fitted up before the start. We got our boat assignment here, and after the prologue disaster we were assigned boat 10 (of 11). We ended up with Shea, Katie, and Stina of Runs with Maps, and we had a raucous time with them. Boat 10 became a highlight of the race for us (and we hope for them!).
The rain started just around the start, and continued for most of the day. Being in boat 10, our raft was at the back of the line for much of the whitewater section. It was rather tame, with mostly class II rapids, but I thoroughly enjoyed it - just the right level of fun with low risk for me. We had a wonderful guide who joked around with us and kept us off of any large rocks. I was happy to eventually be done with the floating section after a few hours, and we were able to paddle hard for the last ~3 miles. Cliff took a turn at the stern but it didn't seem to help us, as we finished about 10 minutes after our rivals in the first 2 boats (Rootstock and AE/ET).
The TA here was meant to be purposeful, and it took us close to 15 minutes to get done here. We had planned it to be our longest TA of the race, and I think that Evan and I followed through well on that. We left in the pouring rain and had a long road run (flat and then steady up) to get into the woods for the meat of the trekking section. We ran it at a steady pace and passed most of the teams ahead of us before punching a CP at Aaron's car, which marked the start of the real navigation challenge. We had 2 maps of this leg - I used a USGS map and Kate used a less-helpful shaded relief map. We worked really well together but were certainly cautious at first. The first CP for us was O1 - we took it carefully and did a really good job reorienting ourselves a few times. It wasn't perfect but it was helpful to get a feel for the maps, distances, and how Kate and I were working together. This was also the first place that we saw Sic Ubu Sic, who we saw many more times over this leg. We moved methodically to O2 from here, and then really buckled down to get O3, O5, O7, O8, and O9. These were the toughest of the race and I was super happy with how well we did with these, hitting them smoothly and making tiny corrections at all of the right times. Kate was excellent as a backup here.
We hit some trail here and were able to run a bit, passing and then trekking with Rootstock and Sic Ubu Sic for much of the next few hours. We were with them through O6 and O4, but they made quicker work of an error just before dark with a confusing marsh that masked the correct trails. We ended up figuring it out really well, but it was slow and got us some separation. Honestly, I was welcoming the distance from them because we needed to beat them by 30 minutes to win the race, and we would never do that unless we were not near each other. By the time we got O13 we were by ourselves and in the midst of a massive rain storm. I don't know if I've been in such a heavy rain during a race - completely drenched and water rushing over my face, running on trails that were more like streams. We saw Rootstock and Sic Ubu Sic at O16 again, but we got to O18 and O15 by ourselves. Our worst two points were in the next set - the first was O19 on the edge of a reservoir. We saw the point, tried to cross the dam, got turned back, and I decided to travel clockwise around the water, which was terribly slow and a waste of time - it would have been smarter to just got lower on the dam and cross there. We moved well then to O14 and O10, where we found Sic Ubu Sic again. O12 was pretty smooth to find, but we did a really bad job of getting off of the feature and back to the trail, wasting a lot of time going really slowly. I remember us losing focus and not being really dialed in - it showed and cost us some time. Our track looks really smooth but it never felt that way. Our last point was O17, and from there we hustled in on trails to TA, getting there just before 1AM. This was close to an hour after we estimated, but we had so much extra time in our estimates that we still felt great.
Kate was a last-minute substitute for Amanda, but we kept our same race plan and were focused on being really efficient and moving well during the race. The pre-race schematic showed only 5 legs, which we felt would be achievable during the 24 hours. I was hoping to be able to keep us found and on the maps so that we could execute that plan. We stayed in Evan's van the night prior and had an early start to drop our bikes where we got our maps. I got an ok amount of sleep but actually felt father rested. I was a bit scattered in the pre-race and was very frustrated with myself the night prior and morning of. There was fortunately plenty of time to go through maps and we felt very good about our race plan. The two trekking stages were actually one big stage that we had the option of splitting into two. Our planning showed us that the best choice would be to just do it all at once to save time, elevation, and distance. We would have to dig deep for what we estimated would be 30km+ of steep trekking, but it was the obvious right decision for us. We did plan on some contingencies of dropping certain points for later but never had to use them.
We had to drop our cars at a different location (the bike drop and map-prep area were the same as the prologue and ended up being TAs 2 and 3, so we got very familiar with it) before getting on busses to go to the rafting company to get fitted up before the start. We got our boat assignment here, and after the prologue disaster we were assigned boat 10 (of 11). We ended up with Shea, Katie, and Stina of Runs with Maps, and we had a raucous time with them. Boat 10 became a highlight of the race for us (and we hope for them!).
The rain started just around the start, and continued for most of the day. Being in boat 10, our raft was at the back of the line for much of the whitewater section. It was rather tame, with mostly class II rapids, but I thoroughly enjoyed it - just the right level of fun with low risk for me. We had a wonderful guide who joked around with us and kept us off of any large rocks. I was happy to eventually be done with the floating section after a few hours, and we were able to paddle hard for the last ~3 miles. Cliff took a turn at the stern but it didn't seem to help us, as we finished about 10 minutes after our rivals in the first 2 boats (Rootstock and AE/ET).
The TA here was meant to be purposeful, and it took us close to 15 minutes to get done here. We had planned it to be our longest TA of the race, and I think that Evan and I followed through well on that. We left in the pouring rain and had a long road run (flat and then steady up) to get into the woods for the meat of the trekking section. We ran it at a steady pace and passed most of the teams ahead of us before punching a CP at Aaron's car, which marked the start of the real navigation challenge. We had 2 maps of this leg - I used a USGS map and Kate used a less-helpful shaded relief map. We worked really well together but were certainly cautious at first. The first CP for us was O1 - we took it carefully and did a really good job reorienting ourselves a few times. It wasn't perfect but it was helpful to get a feel for the maps, distances, and how Kate and I were working together. This was also the first place that we saw Sic Ubu Sic, who we saw many more times over this leg. We moved methodically to O2 from here, and then really buckled down to get O3, O5, O7, O8, and O9. These were the toughest of the race and I was super happy with how well we did with these, hitting them smoothly and making tiny corrections at all of the right times. Kate was excellent as a backup here.
We hit some trail here and were able to run a bit, passing and then trekking with Rootstock and Sic Ubu Sic for much of the next few hours. We were with them through O6 and O4, but they made quicker work of an error just before dark with a confusing marsh that masked the correct trails. We ended up figuring it out really well, but it was slow and got us some separation. Honestly, I was welcoming the distance from them because we needed to beat them by 30 minutes to win the race, and we would never do that unless we were not near each other. By the time we got O13 we were by ourselves and in the midst of a massive rain storm. I don't know if I've been in such a heavy rain during a race - completely drenched and water rushing over my face, running on trails that were more like streams. We saw Rootstock and Sic Ubu Sic at O16 again, but we got to O18 and O15 by ourselves. Our worst two points were in the next set - the first was O19 on the edge of a reservoir. We saw the point, tried to cross the dam, got turned back, and I decided to travel clockwise around the water, which was terribly slow and a waste of time - it would have been smarter to just got lower on the dam and cross there. We moved well then to O14 and O10, where we found Sic Ubu Sic again. O12 was pretty smooth to find, but we did a really bad job of getting off of the feature and back to the trail, wasting a lot of time going really slowly. I remember us losing focus and not being really dialed in - it showed and cost us some time. Our track looks really smooth but it never felt that way. Our last point was O17, and from there we hustled in on trails to TA, getting there just before 1AM. This was close to an hour after we estimated, but we had so much extra time in our estimates that we still felt great.
